The quest to find a safe, reliable methodology for treating and preventing baldness has been ongoing for many years. Although certainly not life-threatening, the loss of hair, in both men and women, causes significant distress to the afflicted individual, and can seriously affect the individual's self-esteem. The problems involved in finding a safe and effective treatment are many. First, the underlying cause of the hair loss is not always the same from individual to individual. Also, the process by which hair grows encompasses several phases and there are many contributory factors that can alter the normal vigorous growth of hair. The hair growth cycle is divided into three phases: an anagen phase, in which the hair is growing actively, with a very substantial level of cell proliferation occurring in the hair follicle; a catagen phase, when the follicle slows down its proliferative activity temporarily to permit hair development; and a telogen phase, in which the follicle simply stops growing and regresses, until the hair is shed, and a new anagen phase begins.
It is of course completely normal for the average person to lose many hairs on a daily basis, and therefore, this cycle is normally repeated continually throughout life, to replenish the hair that is lost. The cycle does slow down with age in all individuals, however with the normal hairs gradually being replaced by progressively finer hair (vellus hair), and the cycles becoming shorter. For individuals who suffer from abnormal hair loss, it is apparent that the normal cyclical process becomes disrupted in some fashion, whether it be through an abnormal acceleration or other alteration of the process; this eventually results in a more rapid shift to the telogen phase, which in turn gradually results in the production of more vellus hair and ultimately may result in baldness.
The causes of this shift to shorter cycles is still not completely understood. A large number of factors contribute to the pattern of hair growth, including, but not limited to, diet, drug exposure, and hormones. A variety of different types have been proposed over the years for treatment of hair loss; these treatments may attempt to counteract the effects of the harmful factors, such as hormones, or they may attempt to directly restimulate the activity in dormant follicles. Many of the agents that have been shown to be successful in renewing hair growth are synthetic pharmaceutical agents, such as minoxidil or procaine. While these materials are effective, they do have some disadvantages in that, as drugs, they may have undesired systemic effects, and/or they may have to be administered orally; in many cases, the treatments are largely targeted to androgenic alopecia, or male pattern baldness, and therefore may not be safe or effective for use by female candidates experiencing hair loss. The gold standard for hair growth enhancers is therefore a natural material that is not hormonal either in chemical nature or in target, that can be administered topically without concern to both males and females experiencing hair loss, and which preferably has a direct effect on stimulation of the hair follicle itself. Although a number of naturally occurring materials, such as saw palmetto, have been recommended for use in the promotion of hair growth, there has been no widespread commercial success or acceptance of any of the natural remedies for hair loss by both men and women. There thus continues to be a need for a method of treating hair loss that utilizes a non-hormonal naturally occurring material as its active component. The present invention now provides such a method.